


he never asked me once about the wrong i did

by dannysaunders



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: Jay Gatsby Lives, M/M, i provide nor feel no need to provide any explanation or reasoning for his survival, this is one of those fics where you just have to accept gatsby didn't die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 23:12:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20786615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dannysaunders/pseuds/dannysaunders
Summary: two men on the edge of a dock share a drink.





	he never asked me once about the wrong i did

The cool air rising from the sound was refreshing against the heat that persisted into the night. Jay sat himself down at the end of the dock, letting his legs dangle over the edge. He counted his breaths, trying to remind himself that he was alive, at least. There was no familiar light anymore, it had gone out some time ago, he couldn’t even remember how long it had been. But he sat there every night anyway, hoping that perhaps if he stared long enough, it would return and the green light would blind him again. It’s magnetism was gone now though, it didn’t pull him out to sea. No, in fact, the water seemed so quiet now at night, not a single boat could be seen in the distance. 

Footsteps against the wooden planks pulled Jay from his trance, he didn’t need to turn around, he knew who it was. Nick Carraway sat down beside him without a word, handing him a glass with some type of alcohol. They sat in silence and drank from their cups. They were cheap and worn, but felt more luxurious than whatever fine glasses laid in droves on his shelves in the empty mansion. Not like anyone drank from them now. 

“I didn’t even think twice about if you were out here. I just came.” Nick finally broke the silence. “No word from her still?” Jay didn’t answer, he knew that Nick already knew the answer to that. And Nick didn’t ask again. 

“Go home, old sport.”

“You know sometimes I wonder if you’ve just forgotten my name entirely.” They both laughed, calmy, unapologetically. It was a warmth that Jay hadn’t known in some time. 

“Go home,  _ Nick. _ ” He grinned, taking a sip of the drink. “You don’t have to worry about me anymore.” He was stunned when Nick laughed harder, and turned to face him finally, his face filled with anxious confusion.

“You know I can’t stop thinking one of these days you’ll just throw yourself into the ocean out here.” Jay didn’t know how to respond, he just kept looking at Nick, whose eyes were still locked out onto the ocean. “It’s been how many months? And you still sit out here every night.” 

He wanted so desperately for Nick to turn and face him. His eyes were so focused on something out there and not on him. He wondered, for a moment, if that’s how he’d been this whole time. So locked on that light just beyond his reach he didn’t turn to face what was beside him. 

“Sometimes I imagine myself swimming across the sound.” He spoke earnestly, but the thought was embarrassing. Nick didn’t laugh at this though, he seemed to be intently listening. “But when I get there, nothing is ever there waiting for me.”

“That’s because there really is nothing there waiting for you. Jay, I don’t think there ever was.” His name seems to pass from Nick’s mouth with such ease, like it's the most familiar thing he knew. Jay reveled in it, ate up the feeling while he could. But then when that moment passed, his words hit him, suddenly, like a ton of bricks. Maybe Nick was right but he didn’t want to admit it. “You’ve spent so long with your eyes across the bay you never noticed who was standing with you here.”

“And who would that be?” Jay took one last swig, finishing up whatever he’d been given. It was sharp as it

“Me.”

Of course it had been him, looking back on the summer, all the moments he’d really needed someone, who had been there? It had been Nick, that new neighbor, who had obliged him. Nick had been the one to ask Daisy to tea that day, the one to follow them around his home that night, and then one to stand by him after the death of the wife of the car mechanic. In the end, it was Nick who sat by him now. 

“You know it was all a con now, don’t you. The man I made myself out to be.” Nick chuckled again, to Jay’s dismay, setting his cup down on the dock. “Honestly, why are you still here?”

Nick didn’t answer, he stared out, intently, on the water. For a moment he turned around to glimpse at the mansion behind him. His lights had been out for months now, but Jay remembered when Nick said they lit up like Coney Island. It seemed to Jay he still didn’t know the answer to the question either. He didn’t know why he’d stayed.

“You’re rather vain, and outlandish, and quite frankly rather idiotic, Jay.”

Again, the two fell silent. Again Nick returned to thinking, just as intently before. He was holding himself back, keeping something to himself. It looked so painful that he was about to burst. Jay just waited, hoping whatever was lingering on the tip of his tongue would come naturally, that’d there’d be no need for prompting. 

“I don’t know why, if I’m honest. It just felt right. Sometimes I swear I hate you, but then I see you again, and you smile, and I forget why I would ever think that.”

Jay had no idea what to say. 

“I think, quite frankly, I stayed because I love you.” It seemed so calm, so matter of fact, that Jay nearly missed what he had said entirely. But Nicks words, what he was saying, hit him in waves. “I never thought I’d tell you that.” Again, he felt himself begging for Nick to turn to face him and he chuckled, embarrassingly, looking down at the sea below their feet.

“Nick, I hardly know what to say.”

“I’d rather you not say anything about it, then.” The silence fell over them again and Jay was left to himself to think. To wonder if he had alone broken Nick spirits in his confusion. With the mess of his life before the car wreck, before the blame, before the near death experience in his pool, he’d never had time to think. To think about himself or Nick. 

“I do have rather… warm feelings for you Nick, I-”

“Don’t just say things to appease me. I know who you are Jay and it’s not like me.” 

He wouldn’t let him finish, but perhaps even if he did, Jay didn’t think he’d have much of anything to say to him. Not that he’d even know what to say. 

“Truth is, Nick, I don’t want to go back there.”  _ There _ had been his mansion, so empty and purposeless now. Of course, the purpose it had before had been superficial, a lie he had told himself to keep moving forwards. But the facade had been shattered, and the cold marble floors felt far more frigid then they had before. “It so… empty. I can’t stand it.”

“Then stay with me. For the night, at least.” Nick finally turned to face him and Jay felt a flash of warmth spread across his face. His eyes were a deep brown, he’d never noticed how lovely they were before. 


End file.
